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I have never been much of a writer, so when I learned that I was required to maintain a blog page for my Social Media and Digital communications class, I was not a happy camper. Writing has never came easy to me, It took too much of my time and It was frustrating. Having to write about a topic as interesting and trending as social media , changed my perspective towards writing. It made it easier to write about because there is so much to say and it related to me and my personal life in some way shape or form. Blogging Changed the way I feel about writing and has made me more conscious of what is going on with social media today.. I grew as writer and I became a blogger.

Though my writing skills very much improved and I enjoyed the topic, that did not mean that blogging was easy. Blogging is hard work. I congratulate those bloggers who are dedicated to what they do. Whether it is your job, if you are required to do it for a course, or you are simply doing it as a hobby, it is a lot of work and it takes time. There is a lot that goes into it. I found that the appearance of the blog page matters. You want to have a site that is organized, easy to navigated and that is appealing. I also learned that videos and pictures tend to enhance the writing and makes it much more inviting and eye catching.

I think the hardest thing about my experience blogging was getting people to read my posts and creating traffic. I took several attempts to encourage people to read my posts, I posted links on Facebook, Twitter and even Pinterest. I did not have much luck using Facebook and Pinterest but I was very successful using Twitter. As the semester went by, I gained more and more viewers and even interacted with other bloggers. I noticed that interacting with other bloggers was much more effective.

Despite the trouble I had with maintaining an audience, my overall experience blogging was great! I learned a lot of interesting

things about social media that opened my eyes and made me more careful on what I do online, and I learned a lot about writing and different techniques to attract readers. This is something I might continue doing sometime in the future. 🙂

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Thanksgiving is long gone and Christmas is fast approaching! We all love the holidays, we love the presents and the break from school, we love the food and spending time with family. But if you are the one who is in charge of all the decorations and dinner, the idea that the holidays are right around the corner is not a pleasant one. If you are stressing about the holidays, there is no need to worry, Pinterest is here! According to the article study: Pinterst makes the Holiday Season less Stressful, by Andre Bourque, the study released by market research company, Lab42 shows that “92 percent of Pinterst users said that the social network makes the holidays less stressful. in fact, 27 percent saying that the pin-board style website makes the holidays much less stressful.” (Bourque) So if you are pulling your hair and losing your sleep, log on to Pinterest, you might find just what you need.

What is it about Pinterest that makes Christmas less stressful? Holiday ideas! The internet is full of clever decoration ideas and holiday recipes. All sorts of ’em. The top three Pinterest categories browsed during the months of November and December are: DIY & Crafts,Holidays & Events, and Food & Drink. (Bourque). The article stated that “94 percent said Pinterest has changed their preparation for the holidays in some way. And holiday users of the social network drive the highest traffic of the year. The majority of Pinterest users overall spend more time on the site during the holiday months”. Theres so many interesting things on the internet, specially around holidays.

The article also talks about the money spent. Some users said that they actually spend more money because they go out and buy things they came across on pinterest. On the other hand, many say they save money with the Do it your own projects.

Whether you are looking for decorations or recipes, Pinterst is the place to go! So if you haven’t you should!

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Thanksgiving is almost here! As a college student away from home I have been looking forward to this day for almost a month now. Oh how I’ve missed the Spanish food and the loud noises of the city. I’ve been mentally preparing myself to focus solely on spending time with my family and friends.

My challenge would be taking a bite of my food before I take a picture of it and post it on Instagram ,but I will keep myself from social media sites until the holiday is over. I encourage others to the same. Thanksgiving is about spending time with others and showing them how much you appreciate them being in your life. It’s ok to share pictures and post statuses about your thanksgiving plans, but keep yourself from doing so while you should be enjoying someone’s company on thanksgiving day. Now, this doesn’t mean you can’t use Social Media to help you plan your Thanksgiving:

According to A Very Social (Media) Thanksgiving written by annaremus “If you’ve vowed to stay off of your phone for the holiday, you can still get your social media fix during the planning process! Allow social media to step in and save the day when it comes to decorating, atmosphere, and even dinner. Check out these ideas to use social media this Thanksgiving:”

-Find decorating ideas on Pinterest

–Prepare for Black Friday with Twitter: Beat the crowds! Find the best deals, both in stores and online, as they’re live-tweeted by @BlackFriday. They also cover some Cyber Monday specials, so take a peek even if you’re not making the mall pilgrimage on Friday.

-Set the mood with a Spotify holiday playlist

-Find some viewer videos of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on UStream-Unsure about a new recipe? Crowd source it on -Twitter!

This are all great ideas to prepare for Thanksgiving using social media, but remember to stay off social network sites! It might be hard, but something tells me that actually devoting your attention to other people is not so bad after all. Enjoy!

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After spending almost an entire semester researching the topic of social media, I am beginning to think of social media as some sort of epidemic. It is everywhere you go! Whether you are waiting for a bus or train, having lunch with a friend or waiting at the doctor’s office, the odds of you running into someone whose face is buried behind a phone, laptop or tablet are very high.

The odds that they are using these devices to surf through social media sites are even higher. People are using social networks sites like Facebook and Twitter to communicate with friends and families, others are using the internet to read newspapers and keep up with the news, and even businesses are taking advantage of social media by advertising their companies through free social networking sites. The advantages of social media and the reason why it has gained such popularity are many. Some people find social media more convenient, others may even think it’s better for the environment thus it reduces the amount of newspapers. However, social media has it’s disadvantages as well, it’s replacing a lot of things. Social media has particularly had a major impact on journalism. There are more and more people out there who express their opinions through blogs and social networks, but isn’t that a good thing? The problem is that some people find it that it takes away from those whose job is to do so, journalists.

The article How is Social Media Replacing Tradition Journalism as a New Source written by Roy Morejon states that “We are living in the digital information age with nearly half of all Americans get some form of local news on a mobile device, and 46% of people get their news online at least three times a week. What’s more, online news sources officially surpassed print newspapers in ad revenue in 2010. Thanks to online news, we’re getting more breaking news than ever before. And thanks to social media, we’re getting news as it happens—sometimes even before news organizations have a chance to report it.” (O’Neill, Nick) Social Media news has gained popularity because is simply a faster way of getting the latest news. According to the infographic provided by the article, over 50 percent of people get their breaking news through social media rather than official news sources. This statistic is very interesting to me because I often find myself learning about the latest news through my Facebook newsfeed.

In her article The Impact of Social Media on Newsrooms and Journalists, Carrie Morgan argues that “anyone in public relations or journalism would have trouble challenging the statement that social media has delivered massive, unprecedented changes across all forms of media (and every publication still in existence). Its impact on the very foundation of how newsrooms operate has been monumental.” Morgan gives examples of how social media has directly affected journalists and newsrooms.

She states that according to CBS News Anchor & Reporter Sean McLaughlin, “the changes not only impact the gathering and production of news, but also job responsibilities across the newsroom – nay, across the entire organization.” She talks about how customer service is mainly provided through social network sites. She talks about how in the old days they spent all day on the phone setting up a story waiting for callbacks. Now they send one tweet out, and seconds later you have experts. Social media has clearly contributed to the changes in the delivery of news. Do you believe this is something we should be concerned about?

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We have quickly learned that Social Media has had a major impact on the way businesses advertise and market themselves. We know large companies advertise by placing adds online and taking advantage of free social media sites, but many of us don’t realize that we can advertise our blogs the same way. According to 30 ways to promote your blog by John Swarts, sharing your posts on social media sites should be your first “avenue for promotion”.

Here is how to promote your blog on social networks:

Facebook: Add it on your personal and or your business page and or groups.

Pinterest: Create a board specifically for all your posts and pin each post to it.

There are many other sites like Foursquare, Stumble Upon and Digg.com that could be very effective when promoting your blogs but the ones mentioned above seem to be the most popular.

It all sounds so easy, but trust me, it’s not! For the past couple of weeks I have been sharing my links through Facebook, Twitter and even other bloggers. Although I’ve gotten a couple of views as a result, sharing my links on these sites doesn’t seem to be enough.

As a different approach, I decided to try a different type of social media, Pinterest: a photo-sharing website that allows users to create and manage theme-based image collections such as events, interests, and hobbies. Users can browse other pinboards for images, “re-pin” images to their own pinboards, or “like” photos.(google) According to The Pinterest Chapter, Part One: Using Pinterest To Promote Your Blog by Susan Getgood, “initially the ethos of Pinterest was to share others’ content, not your own, and in fact, commercial (ie promotional) activity was prohibited.” November 2012, this changed, Pinterest launched business accounts.

The article lists some tips on how Pinterest can support your “promotional strategy” with some suggestions for “maximizing your Pinterest promotion.” Here are some that I found very helpful:

“Convert your personal Pinterest account to a business account. Per the Pinterest Terms Of Service, you MUST do this if you are planning to use your Pinterest account for commercial purposes.”(Getgood)

Make sure you have high quality images

Give your boards names that clearly identify what sort of content folks will find if they visit the board.

Pin when your audience is online and engaging with Pinterest.

This where some tips that can help you promote your blog, or anything if you think about. The approach that you need to take towards promoting your blog is very similar to what a business would do. Share pictures and links on social media sites. Why? Because companies are taking advantage of free social sites ,and we as bloggers should too! Although sharing information online get’s your name out there, what brings people in to view your blogs, or to view your business, is interaction. By interacting and creating a relatioship with people online, you are more likely to be more succesful. You have to show interest in the people, so that they would show an interest in you.